Self-ruinous holiday

A self-ruinous holiday is any holiday which tends to destroy itself, by its social dynamic.

This is by contrast with externally-ruined holidays — unseasonably early blizzards, unseasonably late hailstorms, COVID-19, supervolcano eruptions, asteroid extinction events, and the like.

History

The phenomenon was first detected and noted by software developer and freelance moralist Karl Jones on the evening of Saturday, 21 November 2020.

Fiction cross-reference

• Apoptosis Takes a Holiday - remake of the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday.
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• A lesser holiday tradition (nonfiction) - the Christmas Crab!
• It’s because of your taste buds that the Yorkshire Tea hurt Daddy’s brain (nonfiction)
• Saturnalia (nonfiction)